


The Snowball fight

by solarishashernoseinabook



Category: Ranger's Apprentice - John Flanagan
Genre: Fluff, Gen, Revenge, Snowball Fights, all the characters are kids in this one, trans!alyss
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-05
Updated: 2020-12-05
Packaged: 2021-03-10 03:54:24
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,394
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27887866
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/solarishashernoseinabook/pseuds/solarishashernoseinabook
Summary: When the Ward children get in trouble for having a snowball fight, they come up with a way to get their revenge. Not as serious as I'm making it out to be, promise
Comments: 7
Kudos: 10
Collections: Ranger's Apprentice Fanfic Christmas 2020





	The Snowball fight

**Author's Note:**

> I had a lot of fun imagining the characters as kids as their personalities and skills are just starting to really develop. Hope you like it too! :"D

Will’s legs were beginning to cramp. His fingers were numb by now, but his eyes were as bright as ever and fixed on his target. He had hidden behind a shrub that would have been better cover in summer, but its dense branches still provided some cover. He let out the breath he had been holding, the warm air tickling his frozen lips, and raised his hand slowly.   
  
_THWACK_

Will whirled around. Horace’s snowball had hit him square in the back of the head. ‘Horace, you oaf! We’re on the same team!’ 

Horace laughed and ran off as two more snowballs hit Will’s back. Alyss and Jenny, who made up the other team, had noticed him. Will threw his snowball at them, but they were already running off and it landed harmlessly where they had been standing mere moments ago. _Stupid Horace_ , Will thought. 

Nolan, the Wardmaster, poked his head out of the building. ‘Will! Horace! Jenny! Leon! I told you not to throw snowballs!’ 

‘But Nolan!’ Alyss whined. 

‘No buts! George told me what you were getting up to.’ He waggled his finger at them, a gesture they were all too old for by now but which he hadn’t seemed to catch on to yet. They trudged slowly back to the ward and accepted the wardmaster’s lecture in silence, their cloaks and boots dripping on the thick carpet, before filing out of the entrance into the rest of the ward. Horace went off to find George while Jenny, Alyss and Will sat by the fire to dry off. 

‘I guess you two won,’ he said gloomily. 

‘Only ‘cause Horace decided to prank you instead of playing fair,’ Alyss said, drawing her knees up. In the ward she still had to wear trousers instead of the dresses she preferred, but she wore tunics that went most of the way to her knees and kept her hair as long as she could get away with. 

‘We need to get him back somehow,’ Jenny said. 

‘Yeah, but how? We’re not gonna be able to throw snowballs again for a while,’ Will said. 

Before they could come up with something Arald came in. ‘Leon, come here, please.’ 

‘Her name’s—’ Will began, but Alyss shot him a look and stood up. In the ward, for now, she still had to go by her birth name of Leon. Will had promised to help her when she decided to tell Arald she wasn’t the boy everyone thought she was, but Alyss had always wanted to be sure of her words before speaking to anyone in authority and had spent the last few weeks trying to decide on how to say it to him. 

Will and Jenny traded glances as Alyss followed Arald into the next room. In silent agreement they rose and tiptoed across to the door. Will got there first; he was much better at staying quiet as he walked. They crouched on either end of the door to hear. 

‘…said it was your idea,’ Arald said. His voice wasn’t as powerful as Sir Rodney the Battlemaster’s, but it still tended to boom whenever he was exerting authority, making him clearly audible even through the thick wood of the door. 

Alyss’ reply was muffled, but from the sound of it she was keeping her cool now. She had been practicing her diplomacy more and more lately and was getting better at speaking calmly back to authority figures. 

‘Would have thought all of you were too old for this by now,’ Arald said. ‘Really! It’s one thing for you boys to run off, but to rope Jenny into it as well! At least George had enough sense to stay in and do some work. What would the schoolmaster say if she learned you were ignoring the poem she asked you all to read?’ 

Whatever Alyss said, she spoke for quite a long time. Will smiled. She had probably been working on this since they had been brought inside by the wardmaster. She might have trouble speaking up in the moment, but give her time to think and Will would rather climb the walls of the castle in broad daylight in winter than get into an argument with her. 

Apparently it hadn’t quite worked its magic on Arald – his voice was gruff but firm when he said, ‘No more snow ball fights. And you’re going to help the maids clean the front carpet as punishment. You can go.’ 

Will and Jenny quickly moved away from the door as Alyss came out, fuming, Arald right behind her. As soon as Arald left Alyss exploded in a fit of temper. ‘Horace ratted on me! He told everyone it was my idea! And I mean it was, but just because it was doesn’t mean he can _do_ that!’ 

‘That’s no fair!’ Jenny’s hand, perhaps unconsciously, had gone to the wooden spoon she had recently started carrying with her. ‘We’ve gotta do something about him, but what?’ 

‘I think I’ve got an idea,’ Will said slowly. 

* 

George’s handwriting was the neatest of all of theirs, and he was good enough to write them the note they wanted without asking why – perhaps he felt guilty about getting Alyss in so much trouble. Will, being the best at sneaking, left it in the book Horace practiced math in without the larger boy being any the wiser. When Horace finally noticed it that afternoon and left the ward, everything was already in place. 

Alyss was standing a short distance from the young oak. The sunlight that managed to get through the snow-laden branches showed her face to be stern, her mouth set in a firm line. Horace soon spotted her and moved towards her. 

‘That’s close enough,’ Alyss said when Horace was still under the thick tangle of branches. ‘What did you think you were doing, Horace?’ 

‘What?’ he said defensively. ‘Will’s normally so quick I thought I’d take my chance for once—’ 

‘I don’t care about that right now!’ Alyss said. Even knowing she didn’t mean it, the comment stung Will, snug in his hiding place. ‘What I care about is you getting me in trouble!’ 

Horace didn’t have an answer for that, but that wasn’t going to stop Alyss replying as if he had. She was in full spate now, a day’s worth of carefully cultivated anger having built up into this perfectly rehearsed moment. ‘Don’t you try and give me excuses! The baron _said_ you did it, and _I’m_ the one who got blamed for it even though we _all_ decided to do it, I only suggested it, _and_ we _agreed_ that we’d all confess to stuff like this so that none of us would get in trouble unfairly!’ She seemed to swell up, now in full spate, and though Horace had started to gain on her in height she seemed to tower over them even with the distance between them. ‘ _And_ no one else got in trouble even though I did! I had to help the maids clean the _carpets_! Me! Carpets! It took _hours_ and my hands were all red afterwards! And then I had to stay up late working on that boring stupid poem we had to write about all because _you_ got me in trouble and you got off scott-free! You’re a bum and a prat and an idiot and an oaf and—’ 

‘Is this going anywhere?’ Horace cut in, his temper rising. ‘If I wanted to be insulted, I’d talk to Will!’ 

‘Actually, yes, it _is_ going somewhere,’ Alyss said, recovering nicely. She folded her arms over her chest and lifted her chin. ‘ _Ready_!’ 

Instantly Will and Jenny jumped from behind the tree, grabbed the ropes they’d tied to a branch, and yanked with all their strength. Over-laden with heavy snow, the branch bent only too easily, the snow falling, and a second later the snow on the other branches gave way as well. All of it fell right on Horace’s head, covering him in wet, heavy snow that had been partially melted by the sun’s weak light, plastering his hair to his head, sliding down his cloak and shirt, and filling his boots. Horace roared in anger and stumbled to one side. ‘You dumb jerks!’ he yelled, but Will, Jenny and Alyss were already running back to the ward, laughing hard enough to get a stitch in their sides. 


End file.
